Coming Home
by SuperNothing
Summary: Buck's thoughts as he watches Rudy being pushed into the gorge & the real reason why he decided to join the herd. Buck/Rudy. One-Shot! I know that the pairing is kinda odd, but please R&R anyways & let me know what you think.


He wasn't exactly sure how the whole thing had happened. One minute he'd been petting the colossal dinosaur's snout, an action he was sure the creature was grateful for. He felt the beast weakly press its muzzle into his paw. The action made him smile slightly as he gently caressed what he could of his nemesis. "Better luck next time mate." He whispered quietly so that no one except his companion could hear him.

He heard the others moving just a little ways behind him as they scrambled to get away from them. He sighed as he turned his back on the dinosaur. He heard the beast moaning softly. If Buck had to guess, he'd say that the creature was asking him not to leave. A tortured look crossed Buck's face for only a second before he shoved his own desires aside, and turned back towards his new comrades.

"That won't hold him for long!" He screamed as he ran back to where they were standing, slightly sheltered behind the trees. "We've got to move!!!"

"Sid!" The saber shouted. Making him freeze a little ways past them. His eyes widened as he saw Rudy staring straight into the eyes of the sloth. His ears fell back as Rudy climbed to his feet, and easily broke the ropes that had bound different parts of his body.

He knew it was to late to save the poor sloth. Even if any of them were big and strong enough to be a match for Rudy, there was simply no way that they could reach him before the creature devoured him whole. The others turned away, hiding their eyes from the slaughter that was about to take place, but Buck looked on. To captivated by the dinosaur in front of him to do anything but stare.

Absently he touched his paw to his eye patch, remembering how terrified and exhilarated he'd felt the first time that he'd fought with Rudy. He'd never forget the thrill. The rush that he'd gotten as he struggled for survival against a beast easily three hundred times his own height. Looking into the eyes of the sloth, he saw nothing but terror.

He almost didn't notice the other dinosaur until it was to late, and Rudy never noticed at all. He had already pulled his head back ready to strike when she hit him. Barreling into him at top speed in a desperate attempt to save the sloth. Buck's eye widened as she shoved him through the trees. Pushing him as if he were weightless. Driving him back into a... a...

His eye widened further when he saw exactly where she was pushing him. A huge opening in the earth that was so dark it appeared bottomless. 'No!' Buck thought frantically as he dashed after them as fast as his feet would carry him. 'It's to deep! He'll never survive the fall!!!'

"Rudy!!!" He screamed desperately over the sound of the trees being unearthed from the ground, and Rudy's own maddening cry.

As if the creature had heard him, it stopped it's screeching for half of a heartbeat. Their eyes locked in that moment. The power of the creature's gaze was enough to freeze him in his tracks. Rudy's eyes were swirling with so many different emotions that Buck couldn't decipher all of them in the short amount of time given. The key emotions, which he'd never seen the beast display openly before, were: fear, sorrow, and... regret?

But then the moment was over, and Rudy was falling backwards into the gorge. "N-No.. NO!!!" Buck screamed in agony as he once again started to run. Reaching the opening in only a few seconds. He skidded right up to the edge. Barely able to stop himself before going over the edge himself. He peered over the edge into darkness. Squinting up his eye to try and see into the murky blackness below. To his despair he saw nothing, and heard no movement down below. It was as he'd thought. The fall had been to great, and Rudy hadn't survived the landing.

Buck weakly climbed to his feet, and hung his head. "Rudy." He whispered brokenly as tears collected in his eye. In the back of his mind his senses warned him of the saber's approach. "He's gone." He said weakly to one of his traveling companions when he'd finally come within hearing distance. "What do I do now?"

It was meant to be a rhetorical question. Which was why he was so surprised when the female mammoth, newly made mommy, Ellie answered him. "You could come with us."

He turned around stiffly. Shock and disbelief fleeting across his face. "You mean, up there?" He said, gesturing towards the roof of ice with the sword he'd made from Rudy's tooth, after several moments of silence. "I never really thought about going back." He whispered absently to himself. "Been down here for so long.. This place feels like home to me."

Home. 'Will it ever really feel like that again now that he's gone?' He asked himself sadly. The only reason that he'd survived so long down here was because he'd always had Rudy. Rudy pushed him. Encouraged him, in the dinosaur's own way, to make himself stronger. To make him adapt to his environment faster. Now that Rudy was... d-dead who would push him? Who would challenge him to excel? To survive?

"Look at us. Do we look like a normal herd to you?" One of them asked. It could have been the male mammoth, or the saber, he wasn't sure. He'd only been able to drag himself away from his grief long enough to understand the question, but not who the speaker was.

He turned to see all of them smiling at him. Except for the sloth, who only smiled after the male mammoth hit him on the back of his head with his trunk. He thought on it for half a second before he felt himself smiling back. Rudy had been his whole reason for continuing to stay down here, and now that he was gone there were no other ties holding him here. "Alright. I'll go."

"Great!" Manny said, somewhat sarcastically... or maybe not, Buck couldn't really tell with the mammoth, as he turned to stare lovingly into the eyes of his mate and child. "Let's get out of here."

Buck stared at them for a second before he turned to stare longing back into the gorge. He and Rudy had never been like that. In a relationship that stemmed from nothing else other than love, but he'd still liked to believe that, in their own way, they had loved each other... In some weird way. Theirs was more of a relationship built on frustration and competition rather than love. But still...

"Hey Buck! You coming?"

Buck turned as one of the little opossums called to him. "Yeah." He whispered absently catching up only to walk at the back of the herd. He sighed once before allowing his mind to drift to a happier time. A time where it had just been him and Rudy. Fighting against each other in a never ending battle of wits and wills.

Buck stayed lost in his thoughts the whole journey back through the forest, and a good ways into the cave. It wasn't until they'd crossed over the bridge of bones that he looked up and recognized his surroundings. With another tired heartbroken sigh he took the blade, made from Rudy's tooth, from his shoulder, and plunged it into the ground. "Goodbye Rudy." He whispered quietly into the cave. Tightening his paw over the sword's handle before he released it completely. 'I love you mate.'

For several long seconds he stared down into the cave leading to the only home he'd ever known. When he finally did turn away to rejoin the others it took all of the strength he had not to return for his sword. His paw clenched and unclenched at his side. He was so used to having the sword with him at all times that he felt completely naked without it.

It was then that he heard the roar. A loud deafening shrieking sound that he would have recognized anywhere. Instantly he turned, and his ears rose of his head. "He's alive!" He whispered in euphoric disbelief the ghost of a smile skating across his features. Taking a step or two back towards the bridge.

"Buck?"

Buck turned again to see the saber walking back towards him. Eying him curiously. The roar echoed again throughout the cave, and upon hearing it the tiger eyes began to glow knowingly.

Buck took another absent step towards the bridge and his sword, but stopped after half of a second. Turning back towards the saber a second time. "I gotta... I.." He whispered unable to form a coherent thought as the blood pumped through his body so fast that he could barely breath. He was so itching to run back towards his home. Towards his Rudy.

The saber smiled lightly. "Go." Was all that he said.

He turned to eye the saber for several seconds before he smiled. He shouldn't have been surprised that the saber would understand his need. After all, as far as their love-lives went, the two of them were more alike than he knew the saber would feel comfortable admitting. "It's probably best if this world stays down here." He said already turning around, and collecting his sword. He grabbed one of the many vines that was hanging from the iced ceiling above. Just before he took off he turned again to call over his shoulder. "Hey! Good luck with the sloth."

He met the saber's eyes for a moment before he leaped away on the vine. Cutting at the vines that stood between him and his destination. The boned bridge underneath him collapsed as he cut away its support slash by slash. "RUDY!!!" He screamed.

Over the sound of the falling bridge and the burying ice, he heard the dinosaur roaring. It was the same screechy deafening roar that he'd come to know and love.

"I'm coming home, Rudy. I'm coming home."


End file.
